What to do next? Please Help

Have you booked your flight to Amsterdam? If so, what is the departure airport and what time is the flight?

If not, since you don't want to spend time in London on this trip, we have the question of where you're going to pick up a flight to Amsterdam. You don't want to head somewhere that will leave you a really long trip to whatever turns out to be you departure airport. Therefore, you need to be strategic in selecting the fill-in destination(s).

York could work if there are suitable flights from Manchester or one of the other airports in northern England. You can explore those possibilities on skyscanner.com. York's very popular, but I haven't been there yet myself (or to Newcastle). I've got both cities scheduled for this summer, so I obviously expect them to be interesting.

I have not booked a flight and am waiting for some impute with this part of my journey

Good destinations in northeast England, reachable by train, include at least Newcastle, Durham, and York. Hadrian's Wall can be explored by bus from Newcastle. The wall is worth a day and checks all your boxes if "beautiful gardens" includes beautiful natural landscape. If you can rent a car for part of the time your horizons will expand.

Looking at skyscanner.com, there seem to be plenty of nonstops to Amsterdam, taking 1-2 hours, from Newcastle (NCL), Leeds, (LBA), and Manchester (MAN), all with train service. So you could make your way from Edinburgh to one of those cities with plenty of sightseeing in your time frame.

So many options!

You could take the train to Newcastle upon Tyne and base yourself there for the entire 4 nights. From here, you could have a day trip to Hadrian’s Wall, a day trip to Durham or the fantastic Beamish Museum to see how life was more than a century ago (a bit like Williamsburg), Alnwick Castle, visit my favourite National Trust property Cragside near Rothbury (bus X14 from Newcastle) which has some great photographic opportunities and of course, Newcastle itself. You can fly from Newcastle direct to Amsterdam.

Although I like York, you will lose quite a bit of time in transit moving hotels a second time plus time getting to Manchester airport for your Amsterdam flight.

There are flights from Humberside airport or there is a ferry from Hull. Northumberland and Yorkshire are two of the best areas (if not the best) in England with loads of places which might interest you. If you like old and gardens check the National Trust. They will give you some ideas of what’s in the area. Fountains Abby, Hardrians Wall, Castle Howard are just a few.

Thank you all for your responses. I looked at the places given and may take another route.

I will create another post. with the idea of the West coast of England in mind and then decide what would be the best route for me